Hate has no home here: All New York leaders must speak out clearly against a rash of anti-Semitic hate

One of the oldest forms of group hate is surging in this great city, a shameful reality that demands condemnation from leaders of all backgrounds.

In 2019 to date, anti-Semitic crimes have shot up 106% compared to the same period last year, from 50 then to 103 now, according to the NYPD. That’s disturbingly consistent with a doubling of anti-Semitic acts nationwide from 2017 to 2018, per the Anti-Defamation League.

Advertisement

Statistics, not anecdotes, make trends. But in this case, numbers and stories — and jarring videos — all point in the same direction.

Over the weekend, people in a car — reportedly one with TLC license plates — shouted insults at a 13- and 15-year-old boy walking through Borough Park. They reportedly said “Do you know Hitler? We love Hitler!" and “Allah Akbar.”

The purported perpetrators in these cases are not right-wing white supremacists like the man who killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; they are young black and Latino and Muslim men. This is not to generalize about those groups, but only to state facts for the record.

Monday, Council Speaker Corey Johnson stood with rabbis and Jewish community leaders. That’s welcome, as is the NYPD’s vigilance. More must join the chorus, and ensure their voices are heard.

No one of any ethnic or religious stripe should live in fear that of being attacked when they walk the streets of this great pluralistic capital. We’ve seen and felt such terror before. We cannot let it return.